Chameleon
by Bloody Mary
Summary: The hunter searches for the thrill, seeking the favour of the Dark Prince of Pleasure.


He thinks himself a connoisseur, a man of refined tastes. When he looks at other nobles, he sees useless bores, drunks and gluttons – not equal to him in the slightest. What do they know of true pleasure?

A primitive mind might assume he is a simple womanizer, but then a primitive mind wouldn't understand. Some of those lesser morons dared to say that he did not care with whom he slept. How little did they see. Why should he limit himself to merely cherries, when the world offered apples, grapes and so many other fruit? Why only favour noblewomen, when the wives of labourers ran as eagerly when their life was at stake?

Though, to tell the truth, this sport was starting to get tedious. What thrills would chasing another harlot bring? In the end it's all the same: the begging, the crying and the occasional hysterical fight. He has started tiring of the hunt for some time, but keeps on going in hopes of catching that first moment of ecstasy once again.

Maybe his latest prey will change that? She is young – a sheltered daughter of a minor noble, only recently introduced to the Governor. Her mind is nothing special: he has managed a few conversations with her, all as vapid and shallow as with any girl of her age, but she is beautiful and so very unspoilt. She believes all the best of the world, twittering in her high sweet voice about the unfortunate and the needy.

He has endured her naïveté; he has even found some enjoyment in it. It lets him learn more about her, as any hunter ought of his prey. He has been casting about his net, dredging up details about her family: of her mothers pathetic little addiction, of her fathers nightly trips to escape from it… Carefully, he has started cornering his prey: accosting her at parties, favouring her with gifts.

And now, here they are, in his sanctum. It has taken quite the amount of resources to build it. With each year he has refined it. To describe it simply – sin of sins – it's a labyrinth. The walls twist and meander, allowing one to get completely lost, unless one recognizes the subtle signs etched in the stone.

She comes to, her eyes wide first with shock and then with terror. She starts screaming at him, accusations mixed with pleas. The words are immaterial, but her fear, oh, that is not. He lets her prattle on, taking in her form, the heaving of her breast, the movement of her full rosy lips, before backhanding her.

"Run," he hisses sharply, as she raises her hand to the red mark on her face. Her lip quivers, and so he leans down again, pulling his knife out. He draws blood from her arm and she gasps in pain.

"Run," he hisses again and this time she obeys. She scrambles to her feet, almost trips over her dress and rushes away like a panicked gazelle.

He lets her run, gives her a head start. What sport would it be, if he wouldn't have to exert himself? After a delicious half an hour of denying his instincts, he judges she is suitably lost. Leisurely, he enters the maze, his eyes scanning for the slightest hint of which turn she might have taken. He breathes in deep, catching a hint of her perfume.

Slowly, his pace increases, as he finally stops denying the growing excitement and takes turn after turn, until he's finally running, just as she has been. The discarded shoes do not give him pause – they make sense. They are high-heeled and impractically. Bare-foot she will be faster.

It is when he finds scraps of her torn skirt that he stops. If it were one of his previous prey – the Arbites woman, for example – he'd have assumed she is drawing him into some trap. The little fool, however, is not cunning enough, not bold enough to think she can overpower him. Perhaps she thought she would run faster without the folds tangling between her legs.

He licks his lips in anticipation, imagining the pale smooth flesh of her limbs and picks up the pace again. And yet, he cannot maintain the excitement anymore. The bitter taste of disappointment creeps in again: she will be easy to catch and she will die all to quick-

Something hard slams into him with such force that he can barely stay on his feet.. Something he has not noticed. His knife tumbles away, knocked from his hand by a strong hit. He sees familiar blonde hair, no longer elaborately coifed, but wild and tangled. As he stumbles away surprised, he sees her beautiful face: the vapid blue eyes, the rosy lips and marvels at the change wrought in her countenance by the chase. She doesn't seem so infantile anymore.

Before he can gather his wits, she hits him again, far too strong and swift for a sheltered girl. He feels a sharp pain in his neck and something warm trickles down his skin. A flash of something metallic in her hand catches his eye. A blade? But where had she hidden it?

As he wastes precious seconds on shock, she flows around him, lightening-quick, and aims a savage kick at his groin and follows up with another into his solar plexus. She's stronger than him – he realizes. Inhumanly strong and fast. He crumples on the floor, a part of him savouring the experience more than ever. He knows he is losing, but the feeling is intoxicating: a new sensation. Fear and shock, disbelief and outrage, all mixed into a potent cocktail.

He tries to rise, to lunge at her and overpower her with his bulk, but she dances away. His movements are growing sluggish, as are his thoughts. He stumbles again, his legs buckling underneath him. She kicks him, forcing him to roll over on his back and to look at her.

Her flesh is flowing, reshaping into something different. The face that stares at him now is no longer innocent and beautiful. It's hardly a face, to tell the truth, but more like a beginning of one, something that can become any visage. It's impassive as she stares down at him and slowly, as his thoughts slow down and fade, one comes to the forefront.

All the while he thought he was hunting her, he had been her prey.

**AN: **

Who knew? I can write 40k fic not about Primarchs.

This was my entry for a contest on Black Library Bolthole


End file.
